So Pinwillie came over and taught me how to replace my burnt GI connectors with IDC connectors . Due to time constraints he left before the repair was complete so I had to finish it myself. I replaced the GI connectors at J120 and J115. Before replacing the board we checked continuity between the pins and where they were going on the board and that all seemed fine. I finished the repair and fired the machine up but one of the strings on the playfield is still out. When in test mode testing the faulty string I see this:

T.6 Playfield string 1
WHT-YEL YEL

In the Manual if I am reading it correctly it seems thats the playfield GI is on connector J-120 (page 3-12 of manual) which we did replace. There is a White/Yellow wire on that connector. Is this what the test is referring to? What is the second YEL that comes up in the test display referring to? What does the T.6 stand for?

I pulled the white/yellow wire out of the connector J120 and put it back in. I Reseated the connector. In the manual it appears that fuse 110 is connected with that wire. I pulled that fuse and it does buzz out.

Any thoughts? Am I reading all this correctly? Where should I look next?

my mistake, I had IDC and replaced with crimp style.

checked the fuse, buzzes for continuity.

Still learning and not quite sure how to do that, can you dumb it down a bit for me?

We replaced those as well and checked the traces and we had continuity between the pins and the fuses.

yes

Ok two things. reading pinwiki it says "J120 and J121 are electrically and physically identical (keyed at pin 4) and therefore can be connected to either the female playfield GI connector or the female backbox GI connector without care."

So I switched the connectors between the two and got the same results. Seems to me that if it were a problem on the board then the problem would have moved to another string, most likely one in the backbox since one connector seems to be all backbox and one seems to be all playfield. Thoughts?

Ok just figured something out, I did a test I saw on pinwiki where I measured the AC voltage between the yellow wire and the yellow/white wire and got nothing. When I do the same test on other combos of wires I get a good reading but not between these two, so it appears that there IS a problem on the board and that switching the connectors between J120 and J121 would make no difference.

I will do some research and check those next, thanks for all the help LTG.

I replaced the connector at J115 as well.This was an IDC connector previously and many of the wires were looped through. I pigtailed them since I am using crimp connectors. Could this be part of the problem?

On connector J115 I used my DMM at female connector 3 and connector 11 and got 6 to 7 VAC, This was suggested on pinwiki. How can I check the other pins on J115 to make sure they all have good strong connections?

Heres the newest pic. I replaced the two connectors we had and put it all in one. The top (number twelve) Y/W is non pigtailed. ten and eleven Y/W are pigtailed. nine is the key. Eight and seven are Y/W pigtailed. Six is just yellow and non pigtailed. Four and five yellow pigtailed. two and three are yellow pigtailed. and One is Y/W non pigtailed.

Going out for a while, hope to work more on it later. Still trying to figure out what and where the Triacs are and how to test them.

IMG_3406.JPG

I set the DMM to continuity and put one lead on the point where the wire was soldered to the pigtail and then the other lead into the female connector. They all buzzed, this a good enough way to check or should I check some other way?

Trying this now will report back.

Left the game on for 15 minutes and all Triacs were hot to the touch. Back to the drawing board.

Looks like the next step might be pulling that board again and checking the traces. Groan... so many connectors!

We did check that, looks worse than it is. The wire was previously soldered right to the trace.

Fine! I guess if I have to. In all seriousness your routes that I should check will be super helpful, thank you so much. I am sure that was a lot to figure out and type.

Hey johnwartjr where did you find all that info? Was it something you copied and pasted from a website or did you actually take the time to map it all out and write it all down? If you did take the time, you are a saint. Even if you copied and pasted its very helpful. Thanks again and I could not be more jealous of your collection You almost have my entire top ten!

Also, I am wondering if this info would apply to any williams game that uses the same board or is it specific to Hurricane?

Going to bed now but will be pulling the board and running all these tests tomorrow. I will report back.

Ok the issue is fixed! All strings are working 100% and the machine looks great!

But I must humbly admit why. I come to you all with hat in hand and egg on my face. What did everyone tell me when I started this thread?

Yes it was a fuse. I feel like such a bonehead, but before you jump all over let me explain. Earlier when I said I had checked the fuse I really had. When LTG asked if I had pulled it and checked I had in fact done that too. BUT I only pulled fuse F110 because in my manual that was the fuse that I thought was associated with the wire I had been having problems with the, yellow/white. I did not realize I needed to check the fuse asscociated with just the Yellow wire.

Why did I not check the other fuses? Because they are such a pain in the ass to pull. In fact I broke my crappy little yellow fuse puller trying to pull out that first fuse. I am always nervous pulling fuses that I will break something else with all the force. It was not untill I pulled the board again and followed all of the steps that johnwartjr told me to do did I realize that one of the other fuses was blown. So yes I am an idiot, but on the other hand I am a little glad it happened. I really want to learn as much about repair as I can and if I had just pulled all of the fuses first thing I would have missed out on some great things I learned.

1. Buy a fuse puller, a good one.
2. When there is a problem that could be a fuse, pull them all and check them all with my DMM. The fuse I pulled that was bad did not look blown at all.
3. I learned how to test the AC voltage on the wires.
4. I learned a whole hell of a lot more about how the GI works on williams machines and how I can thoroughly troubleshoot it in the future. Thanks especially to johnwartjr, that stuff from Clays guide was great.
5. I learned what triacs were.
6. I learned how to use my DMM to trace the path for one spot to another.

Thanks to everyone who helped me out. Special thanks to Johnwartjr, LTG, and Pinwillie for showing me how to fix the connectors in the first place. Thank you for your patience, hopefully next time someone has this problem I can help them and you guys can sit back and take a load off.

Lastly let me here some recommendations for a good fuse puller, not like the cheap plastic yellow one I had.

Totally agree, I actually felt really awesome after I fixed it. I really enjoyed learning so much.

I have been using a small screwdriver as well, but I have to use so much force I am afraid of breaking something else. Ever use one of these kind of fuse pullers?

http://www.amazon.com/Cooper-Bussmann-Cartridge-Bp-Fp-2-Electrical/dp/B000GAS3Q2/ref=sr_1_7

My main concern is that with the fuses so close together in the case of something like the GI I wont be able to get the tool in there.

Thanks dude!

I will try your way first.

brilliant! will remember that!